Shared Spirits, Author at Liquid to Lips Marketing.

Spirits and wine sampling should deliver relationships

Spirits and wine sampling should deliver relationships. If it doesn't, why not? Over the course of writing this post, we are asking ourselves, and you, some tough questions. As a spirits brand, are you building relationships that do not require distributor personnel? Are you doing anything differently from the competition to enhance relationships with your key on-premise accounts? Doing things better or leading on price is a non-starter. What are you doing that is different? When the marketing people say they know who buys your product, how do they really know? Sure they know the distributors who buy. They know…

By Shared Spirits

Sampling as a Service ROI

A wine supplier recently asked us about our Sampling as a Service ROI. We thought it an odd question given the ROI of any supplier spend is largely unmeasured. Ultimately, case counts are the only measure being considered by the spirits and wine industry. However, when you're launching a new category, in our case digital activation, you have to educate people to new language. We're using this post to layout an example of sampling as a service ROI. In the graphic below, you see a table featuring hard metrics, these are measurable metrics. Soft metrics are important and in this…

By Shared Spirits

Marketing Your Beverage Program with Sampling as a Service Software

Marketing your beverage program with Sampling as a Service Software is fun, easy, and nearly free! Nearly means, it costs you nothing but a little time. This isn't meant to be an all inclusive list of how to leverage our system. We know the best ideas and implementations are yet to come! Here are some suggested ways to leverage the platform. 1) Knowing that many of your customers would "gift" cocktail, wine, and beer experiences with friends, colleagues, and consider a "Flight". Flights are terrific ways for customers to experience your environment in new and exciting ways. If you're a cocktail…

By Shared Spirits

How do I make my beverage program more viral?

How do I make my beverage program more viral? A VIRAL beverage program? What is this even about? Sprout Social defines viral social media as follows. It's called “going viral” when a piece of content really takes off on social media and reaches a large audience very quickly by receiving an unusual amount of shares and exposure. Whether it's a tweet or an Instagram Reel, many different types of content can go viral. So in traditional terms, a piece of content goes viral when shared in unusually high degrees. The ability to share a purchasable, shareable, and redeemable cocktail, wine, or…

By Shared Spirits

How Jim used beverage marketing software.

Jim used beverage marketing software. We'll find out how but first a question. What is beverage marketing software? Shared Spirits conceived and built a mobile app and underlying software system that allows spirits, wine, and beer brands to leverage marketing spends in new ways. Software becomes exponentially more valuable when it is used by multiple parties. The more people in a supply chain use the tool, the more valuable it becomes for all users. Shared Spirits software compliantly converts marketing dollars from restaurants, bars, and brands to digital drink credits. What's a digital drink credit? A digital drink credit represented…

By Shared Spirits

Spirits and Wine Brands Support On-Premise Accounts While Growing Depletion

Spirits and wine brands support on-premise accounts while growing depletion. How so? I've been doing considerable research on the state of the industry lately. Workforce issues lead the list as the biggest issue facing operators. Margins remain razor thin and some hours have had to be modified to account for staffing issues. Here at Shared Spirits, our focus for the year is the restaurant or bar operator that's been killed via covid-19 hurdles. We have some thoughts on how the spirits, wine, and beer industries may support these key on-premise partners and still win in ways never before imagined. It…

By Shared Spirits

Sales Feedback is so Valuable

Sales feedback is so valuable. It is not always fun. I recently approached a local hospitality group on Facebook that had a section for Mentors. I approached a few people feeling I could have a short conversation. I wanted to talk about what Shared Spirits had built. During this period, approached 10 mentors with a quick request. Have a conversation with me. The request included my offer to pay for their time. My goal? Share our new beverage marketing software pricing plan. As a CEO, it's my job to be able to sell our product, our company, our investment potential,…

By Shared Spirits

We Own Alcohol Industry Digital Activation

We own alcohol industry digital activation. There, I said it. In Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets, the breakout book on category design by Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, and Kevin Maney, it's argued that companies shouldn't just want to compete if they intend to survive. They should instead seek to create an entirely new category. This category can be thoughtfully designed and intentionally dominated. Successful companies end up owning the category they created. By the time others have found out what happened, it's too late for anyone to catch up. One of the…

By Shared Spirits

Moving the adult beverage business to digital activation.

Utilizing the Buyer Utility Map framework from Blue Ocean Strategy, found in the breakout business text Blue Ocean Shift, I'll demonstrate why we are moving the adult beverage business to digital activation. In this case, the buyers of sampling and tasting programs are spirits and wine brands and occasionally, the distributors that have agreed to rep their products. Be mindful that in today's spirits and wine business in the US, the distributor has literally purchased the products from distilleries and vineyards or "suppliers". There is a LOT of money at stake. Diageo, the world's largest spirits and wine conglomerate with…

By Shared Spirits

Customer Sampling. Big Liquor Budgets $10 to $15 per. But for What?

I was reading through a significant liquor supplier's marketing plan deck. It was a deck associated with a particular year's go to market plan. Customer sampling cost of $10 to $15 per sample to the consumer was the planned spend for the year. The difference between $10 and $15 was determined by the nature of the event or activation as we call it in booze marketing. Screen grab from a big liquor marketing deck This informs you immediately as to the extremely high cost of sampling customers in the spirits, wine, and beer industry. What are satisfactory metrics for these…

Author: Shared Spirits